6 selections, $2,070 in donations
Since April 2024, Gunnison Country Food Pantry has been selected to benefit from the City Market Fight Hunger bag program 6 times. In total, the organization has received $2,070 in donations to continue providing nutritious food to neighbors in need.
Tell us about Gunnison Country Food Pantry.
The mission of Gunnison Country Food Pantry (GCFP) is to provide food assistance to those in need in a kind, confidential, and supportive environment. We prioritize healthy options at our food pantry. There is a lot of fresh produce, milk, eggs, cheese, and dairy, along with other staples.
Our organization started in 1962 when the director of the Department of Health and Human Services realized that families applying for food stamps could not bridge the gap between filing an application and receiving services. Out of the kindness of her heart, she began keeping peanut butter and bread under her desk to distribute to individuals and families when they came to apply for assistance.
Over the years, her small effort grew from her desk to a closet in the Department of Health and Human Services, to a church basement, and then to a few other small locations in town. In 2006, we became a nonprofit. In 2010, the food pantry rented its first facility. We have been embedded within the community for over 50 years and have been a certified nonprofit organization for about 19 years.
What services do you provide to the community?
We’re a food pantry through and through. Our main program is our no-cost grocery distribution for community members. If I took you on a tour, you would see a 1,000 square foot shopping center. Our guests fill out a brief application online or in person, and we check them in. They grab a grocery cart and shop like at any other grocery store.
The shop is open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. On Wednesdays, we are open in the evening. We strive to offer Spanish translation at every distribution, and on Wednesdays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., we guarantee translators for both Spanish and Cora, the local indigenous language.
Home deliveries are offered to individuals who are experiencing barriers and cannot shop the pantry. For example, new mothers, particularly single moms, who are struggling with a lack of transportation. Whatever the case, we work with folks to provide a bundle of food they will like and use every week.
Whatever the case, we work with folks to provide a bundle of food they will like and use every week.
Through our robust Food for Children program, we deliver Gunni-Packs on Fridays. Each pack is filled with food to support a child from Friday night through Sunday night when they’re unable to access the reliability of school meals. We currently deliver 68 Gunni-Packs weekly, which will likely grow closer to 80 in the next few weeks.
We also deliver over 4,000 healthy snacks monthly to every Gunnison Watershed School District school. Our food pantry realized that teachers were taking money from their personal budgets to supplement snacks for their classrooms, so we started working with the schools to deliver healthy snacks to the classrooms. This program isn’t based on need, and any child can grab snacks. For middle schoolers, we also have a mini pantry that serves emergency food.
On Saturday mornings in May through November, we have a fresh mobile pantry that goes out into neighborhoods in need. No application, form of identity, or proof of address is needed for any of our services, but the fresh mobile pantry ensures you don’t even need to sign a single sheet of paper. The goal of this low-barrier service is to bring as much fresh produce into communities in need as possible.
No application, form of identity, or proof of address is needed for any of our services, but the fresh mobile pantry ensures you don’t even need to sign a single sheet of paper.
We recover most of the food distributed. We pick up food from the grocery store all week. If you look at a place like Denver, for example, there’s one food pantry that just does distributions, another that helps with childhood hunger, and another that helps the elderly. We don’t have that wealth of resources here, so we fill all those gaps.
How has Gunnison Country Food Pantry used the donations from the City Market Fight Hunger bag program to further its mission?
What we love most about these dollars from City Market is they are unrestricted. I love that they are unrestricted for a few reasons. First, it tells me City Market trusts us and knows we will make the best decisions we can with their money. Second, we also get plenty of restricted funds, so having the flexibility to decide where money is allocated is great.
Most of the money that comes in, unrestricted or not, ends up in our programming budget. Over the past two years, we’ve seen immense growth, including a 5% increase in guests. Our food budget has continued to grow, and programming costs have expanded. The most valuable thing for an organization like us is to have ongoing support to prove that a place like our local City Market bought into us.
The most valuable thing for an organization like us is to have ongoing support to prove that a place like our local City Market bought into us.
When we have these consistent dollars coming in over a period of time, it helps maintain and grow our operations. We can also use support like this to tell other funders to look at the community support we have from City Market. Many other funders like to see that and are usually more likely to fund organizations that have this type of consistent support.
The program helps us on all levels. It helps us feed our neighbors. It helps us maintain the growth we need. The reoccurring gift means a lot to us.
Tell us a story about a program, service, or initiative that the City Market Fight Hunger bag program has supported.
Holly, one of our guests, was a student at Western Colorado University studying computer science. She is painfully smart and witty. As she honed in on her studies, Holly began struggling with her mental health and started to experience food insecurity. It can be hard to believe someone like Holly, an educated and resourceful young woman, could have experienced food insecurity.
Gunnison Country Food Pantry has a partnership with Western Colorado University through the Mountaineer Marketplace, a sister pantry of GCFP. It serves Western students, faculty, and staff in need of food assistance, and we help them with fundraising and agency relationships.
The pantry reduces stigma by making the food pantry a one-stop shop. If you need condoms, they will tell you to go to the marketplace. If you need Narcan, they will tell you to go to the marketplace. If you need mental health resources or information about services, you go to the marketplace.
Holly found herself at the marketplace, looking for additional resources, and fell in love with the stigma-free community. She started receiving food, and it changed her outcome in school. She was able to manage her mental health and not have to worry about if she would be able to eat that night. Holly’s story exemplifies that there is a rite of passage narrative that suffering and scraping by with ramen noodles is just something you should expect to do in college and how detrimental that can be.
Holly’s story came full circle in a beautiful way. Today, she runs the marketplace as the assistant director of the Department of Student Health and Community Wellness at Western Colorado University.
Have you noticed any changes in community awareness or support since becoming involved in the City Market Fight Hunger bag program?
Personally, I’ve noticed a few things. A few weeks ago, I was shopping at City Market and heard an employee over the speakers, talking about the City Market Fight Hunger bag program and how local proceeds go to the Gunnison Country Food Pantry. It was very exciting. I thought to myself, “Holy cow! That’s amazing marketing for us.”
Whenever I see folks at the grocery store, they like to show me that they have their bag with them or that they are buying one. It’s great to have a reminder of our presence that encourages people to donate money or food. City Market also gets a ton of foot traffic, which we’re grateful for.
What advice would you give other nonprofits participating in the City Market Fight Hunger bag program?
I use our newsletter and social media to promote the bag program. For our organization, social media is not our best form of communication, but our newsletter goes out to 500 people and gets a ton of traction. My advice would be to think about where your constituents are looking to hear from you. Is it social media? Is it your newsletter? Is it a radio ad? Is it a newspaper ad?
We also really push to stay involved. I publish the news each month, and we do our best to use word of mouth. This month, the food pantry needed some bags, so we bought some Fight Hunger bags and then used them to show our volunteers what bags to look for at City Market. The physical copy and the human connection definitely help. Then we can say, “This is what it looks like. Next time you’re in, get your bag!”
Wherever your folks expect to hear from you, blast it there and don’t be afraid to blast it frequently. People will need to see it in four different ways before it registers. We change it up, restructure it, and provide the information in a different way, but we stay active and spread the word.
Interview with Jodi Payne, Executive Director